Hello,

I have a 1 Gigabyte LinuxPPC partition on my HD, along with a HFS+ partition. Because space is running low on the HFS+ partition, I need to reclaim the Gig from LinuxPPC.

Question is, will a HFS+ volume still work if I enlarge the size of the partition? (i.e. I'd like to delete the LinuxPPC partition and change the the size of the HFS+ partition.)

Has anybody done this, or lost his HFS+ partition's contents while trying to do so?

RU

PCFE

[wlonh]

you can't enlarge an existing partition. you will need to reformat the HD to change partition sizes

I don't know about other software, but I recently used FWB Hard Disk Toolkit 3 to modify partitions on a disk. With HDT 3, you can delete and create partitions on a drive without having to re-initialize the whole drive. You can also enlarge existing HFS partitions, not HFS+.

[wlonh]

well there ya go, i've never used third-party HD formatters...

[drewman]

Backup, backup, backup!!!!!

Altering any part of the format of a drive can cause problems. Backup before doing this.

drewman

Hello,

does anybody know why HDT can enlarge a HFS and not a HFS+ partition?

Is there another difference between HFS and HFS+ besides the maximum number of allocation blocks?

The tool per se is no problem as I'll modify the partition table with LinuxPPC.

Sort of off topic, but does linux need HFS to work, or will HFS+ work too?

It doesn't matter whether your disk is HFS or HFS+ for LinuxPPC. When you install it, it reformats the partitions for its own use. A/UX or UFS if I remember correctly.

For the slightly more advanced, I use Silverlining to resize all of my partitions.

Though I am not sure if it will work with HFS+ as I was using only HFS.

However, always back up your data first as resizing partitions can cause MAJOR problems!

[drewman]

I bet you can't resize HFS+ partitions because they are actualy a file inside of an HFS wrapper.

If you boot up to a system that doesn't support HFS+ then you get a HFS volume that explains that the file you see is the actual HFS+ partition.

So while the program could increase the size of the HFS wrapper, making a file on it larger without messing with its contents could be much trickier....

drewman

I have a 4 gig Hard Drive and have it broken up into 3 parts.
My main MacOS partition is HFS+, and about 2.8 gigs.
In the last couple of months, I have used pdisk (a freeware Mac application) to change the type/number of/sizes of the remaining space. From a partion(s) usable for LinuxPPC back to HSF(+).
Drewman is right you should always backup your data before doing this. But, in all the times I've fooled with that extra space, I've had zero problems w/data loss ect.
Instead of trying to enlarge your primary MacOS partition, why not just change the type of your Linux partition to HSF?

FYI: When you use the "Erase Disk" function under the Special menu on other Mac partitions, you will be given the option of reformatting as a HFS or HSF+.

All the installs I've done of LinuxPPC have been Hard Drive installs. I'm not sure about the new release (LinuxPPC 2000), but with '99 you could only do a Hard Drive installation from an HFS partition. Also, files to be exchanged from Linux-Mac, or Mac-Linux needed to reside on a HSF partition. Again, I'm not sure about the new release.

Speaking of pdisk, where can I get pdisk?

I'm pretty sure I got it with one of the distributions of Linux I've installed. I would try version tracker, download.com, or one of the various Linux sites.
This isn't real user friendly software, but heck if I can figure it out.....
If you are having problems, dl the LinuxPPC install pdf. It covers using pdisk in the Linux installer, and the steps and commands are the same as the Mac version.
***I don't know any of your user levels....so please be careful when messing w/this stuff. I never had any problems, but.....A HD back up is never a bad idea***

Justin

I know that backup is the wise way to go. But I found FWB HDT 3 to be quite safe. If pcfe use HDT 3 to delete the Linux partition, I think that will not do any harm to the HFS+ partition. In the case that pcfe does not have any backup devices, what pcfe could then do after deleting the Linux partition is to create 500MB or so HFS partition that could hold all the files from the HFS+ partition and restart the Mac from this new partition.

The use HDT 3 again, delete the HFS+ partition and create a new HFS+ partition using all the available space on the hard disk. So the result is that pcfe will have two partions on the disk, one 500MB or so HFS partition that could store some files and one HFS+ partition that could be use as the main partition.

[This message has been edited by Seagull (edited 03-22-2000).]

By the way, you can get pdisk at http://ftp.linuxppc.org/ftp/install/...tils/pdisk.sit The size 55K. It is not easy to use, as someone said.

Thanks for the URL.

I do have a daily backup (losing a 40MB HD was a lesson 7 years ago)

I know how to convert the format of the partition from Linux to HFS+, but enlarging my main partition would be nicer. Alsa that won't work as pointed out in another post.

Thanks for all the help.